Okay, I have to back up here. I forgot to put some things in last week. And I don’t know how I forgot! Friday, Dec. 5th was Gary’s birthday. After work that day, we headed to Sizzler for dinner to celebrate. When we got home, we saw that Shelley had sent me a message and wanted to Face Time. So we did, and talked for a long time, even though she is 3 hours different time zone than us! Hunter was even still awake to talk to us briefly!
Saturday morning, Dec. 6th, I had a haircut appointment before we headed to the Creche exhibit. When we went grocery shopping that afternoon after we got home from the exhibit, we got ingredients so that I could make the Shreveport Gumbo that we usually eat during December each year….usually at Hope’s house when we are playing pinochle! I planned on taking it to work to share with the other missionaries in the office. I was thinking of taking it for Tuesday’s lunch.
Sunday afternoon, Dec. 7th, I decided it would be better to take the meal on Monday, so that I could have the time Sunday afternoon to start it…..it takes quite a bit of time to prepare, more than I usually have in an evening. So I chopped up the veggies needed, browned the roux for the required 30 minutes, and mixed up everything except the shrimp. Then let it cool and put it in the crockpot and put in the fridge. We Face Timed with Kori and family that evening, so the kids could wish us both happy birthdays.
Okay, now to this week. I got up the usual time on Monday morning, but instead of going to exercise, I showered and began the rest of the preparation to get ready to take the gumbo to work. I made rice in my Pampered Chef microwave rice cooker, then put it in another crockpot to keep it warm at the office. I put the shrimp in the gumbo, and got everything ready to load up in the car to take to the office. When we got there, I plugged the crockpots in, cooked the gumbo on high for 4 hours, and turned on the other crockpot to low to keep the rice warm. Well, that turned out to be not such a good idea….it was almost too hot for the rice. Too bad I didn’t have another crockpot that had a warm setting! So, I just turned it on and off at various times throughout the morning to keep it warm, but not overcooked! Then the 6 of us in the office all had lunch……that included Sister Nedreberg, Sister Wilks, and Elder and Sister Conner. It was a yummy lunch, if I do say so myself! Way better than the packed lunches we do all the time.
Monday was my birthday, and I had several calls during the day…Morgan Bradshaw, Brandon Bruggeman, Karen Maughan. I had the Viet elders, Elder Hullinger and Elder Golightly come sing to me. When we got home from work, Scott called and talked with us. Then we headed to Red Robin for dinner. While there, Jeff tried calling, but I didn’t answer because it was so noisy I wouldn’t have been able to hear him. On the way home, we called him and started talking and talked all the way home and even while we sat in our car in the parking lot. When we got in the apartment, Traci and the boys called us. We learned that for Tristan’s 10th birthday next Saturday, he chose to go help at a soup kitchen in the morning, because, as he said, they don’t have as much as he has. Such an unselfish comment! Way to go Tristan! Of course, later in the conversation, he wanted to know why we had to miss 2 of his birthdays while on our mission! Yes, he is still a kid!
We have had storm warnings for several days. Wednesday evening it was supposed to arrive. When we got up Thursday morning, it was still ok here, but the wind was, and had been, blowing. We went to exercise, and I noticed that the apartment managers here didn’t heed the warnings on the news to make sure things were taken care of so they didn’t blow around. The umbrellas at the tables by the pool hadn’t even been closed, and one of them had blown out of the center hole of the table and was on the ground blowing around. After we got done showering, I turned on the news to check on the storm. It was in San Francisco already, and moving south towards us. As we left for work, the rain started, and it rained hard all day long. There had been warnings of flooding and possible mudslides. We did hear of areas that had flooding, and some of our elders told us that they had to help push cars out of flooded areas, with the water being almost to their knees….why people drove into that, I don’t know! We learned that a Safeway store near the office had part of the roof collapse because of the rain. We were fine. The storm was to continue into the night, and still rain on Friday, which it did, but not as hard.
It is really green around here now! You wouldn’t know they had had a drought. So different from last year when it was so brown everywhere.
Saturday we slept in a little…we have been so tired. Of course, sleeping in means till around 7:30. After getting some laundry going, and starting on the grocery list, we decided to try calling Tristan to wish him a happy birthday, and we said we may be able to Skype with them later in the day, depending on our schedule and theirs. Tristan told us he was going to be going to a jumping place for part of the afternoon with a friend who had the same birthday. Then, we went grocery shopping, and did laundry and cleaning.
During the afternoon, I decided to lay down for awhile and rest. I could have fallen asleep, but luckily Gary came in and asked if I wanted to go to a movie or something. I knew I needed to get up….too late in the day to nap….and we decided to go to a movie. The movie we chose to see was the new Dumb and Dumber sequel. We should have skipped it….most sequels just aren’t as good as the first, and this one was pretty crude.
There have been changes in the numbers of missionaries….not only here but all over. This transfer is a big one for change. We lose 15 sisters and only get 2 coming in. Total missionaries going home this time is 20, with 8 coming in. The numbers of all the missionaries is going down, but more so in the numbers of sisters. We got so many when the age change happened, and now those girls are the ones leaving. The numbers are leveling off now. But, because of the dropping in numbers of missionaries, it is time to make adjustments in areas and housing. President Mella and the assistants had a difficult time working through this transfer because of all the changes. Gary is going to be closing 6 apartments now in places we won’t have so many missionaries. He still has to open 1 or 2 in areas that have been crowded, and those numbers haven’t changed. It will be a busy January for him. We are still hopeful that we will get replacements. However, it won’t be in time to do some of the work of closing and emptying out those apartments, so he has his work cut out for him.
This coming week is transfer week, so the Outgoing Devotional is this evening. This transfer will be 7 weeks long instead of the usual 6, because of the adjustment for Christmas travel and this current one moved up a week. The transfer just finishing was only 5 weeks long. So, the next transfer is Feb. 4th. For that transfer, we will have 23 going home and 9 coming in. Another loss in numbers.
Today we had another baptism in the Vietnamese branch, with a meal afterward. Church was kind of strange today, as the opening prayer was said by a recent convert, and he didn’t start it in the usual way, but it didn’t seem bad, considering he is just learning (and that is our estimation from listening to the translation). Anyway, after the prayer was finished, the branch president was conferring with his counselor, and the next thing we know, the counselor gets up and says another opening prayer! So, I guess they didn’t figure the other one counted! The rest of the meetings went okay, then afterward, we had the baptism. To start the baptism, the same recent convert who gave the prayer in Sacrament Meeting was the one to give the opening prayer for the baptism, and the same thing happened…he prayed, then the counselor prayed! Strange….I don’t know what exactly happened, so I need to ask the elders. It must have been something that we missed in the translation.
Anyway, I was excited that one of our recent converts was going to be doing the baptism! I like to see them being involved and part of the branch instead of just sitting in meetings and not helping the branch to progress. Anyway, I guess he didn’t get a lot of training on how to do the baptism, and it was done 3 times because each time some part of her was still above water. The third time, they stopped, so we all figured it was finally done right. I even commented to Gary that when he baptized Kori, she had to be dunked 3 times. Well, when the people changed and came back into the room, and it was time for the confirmation, the branch president was in the hall and motioned for either his counselor or the branch mission leader who was conducting the meeting….can’t remember for sure who it was….to come in the hall. After a brief meeting, they came in the room again, and the next I knew, it was being announced that the closing song was next, and who was giving the prayer. We had no idea what was going on. Then everyone went into the gym to set up for the little meal. While there, the branch mission leader came and talked to us. It turns out that even the 3rd time the lady was baptized, part of her was above water, and the missionaries didn’t know how to handle things without embarrassing the man performing the baptism or the lady being baptized. So, what we have been told is that it will be redone on Tuesday evening. I don’t know if the same man will be doing it, or someone else this time. We were told what time to come if we can. We said if we didn’t show up, it would be because we are in our busy week, and never can predict what time we will finish each day.
Okay, that gets us to this point. Gary plans on calling his dad today to wish him happy birthday, and then we will head to the Outgoing Devotional.
I can’t remember, did I tell you all to look at the site, christmas.mormon.org and watch the short video? I know I mentioned it on Facebook, but I don’t think I did here. A good reminder of why we celebrate Christmas. I hope that we can all remember the reason for the season, and not get caught up in the commercialism.
Stay true to the faith!
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